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Microsoft has announced a new wave of games coming to the Xbox Game Pass service over the next couple of weeks.As always, games both enter and leave Game Pass every month. These are the games that will be coming to Xbox Game Pass at the beginning of August:Ghost Recon: Wildlands, the open-world third-person shooter co-developed by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Milan, will be available on Xbox Game pass today.

The study, which was conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute and reported on by BBC News, examined 39,000 game players, with wellbeing measured “by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.” It was also noted that the average person would have to play for “10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference” in their wellbeing.The study included six weeks of data from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and used Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Apex Legends, Eve Online, Forza Horizon 4, Gran Turismo Sport, and The Crew 2 to find the results.Professor Andrew Przybylski stated that people with more free time to play video games were probably happier, but he continued to say that “how much you play doesn’t really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in wellbeing. If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better.”This contradicts the study from 2020, which sampled a much smaller pool of 3,274 gamers, and concluded that video games were good for a person’s wellbeing.

Xbox creator and Jurassic Park: Trespasser designer Seamus Blackley has outlined how a game pitch to director Stephen Spielberg eventually morphed into the Jurassic World movies.Blackley mentioned the story in brief on his Twitter last week (July 23), writing: “I wrote a story and design, and made a trailer. The management at Universal changed, and the project became a film.”In the ‘90s, Blackley worked at DreamWorks on locomotion physics, and the only way the company would fund a game that used them was if it was a Jurassic Park title.

Xbox Games with Gold service will no longer be offering Xbox 360 games starting in October.Games with Gold is a service available to subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It’s essentially a few freely downloadable games that Microsoft chooses every month.

Microsoft has announced a new program designed to bring demos to Xbox Game Pass, and it’s called Project Moorcroft.The early game demos intended for the Project Moorcroft initiative are meant to replicate the demos played during gaming conferences such as E3 or PAX.“We were sitting around as a team thinking, you remember it used to be you go to E3, you go to PAX, and you would go visit some of your favourite creators and they would have a piece or a level of a game that you could sit there and play, and there would be someone from the studio like right next to you in your ear being like: ‘press that button, go under there, do that stuff,'” said Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of game creator experience and ecosystem at Microsoft Gaming, speaking to press.“And you would get to experience the game, and they would get to generate excitement about what they’re building and what’s coming next.“So we said you know what?” Bond explained, “Why don’t we take Game Pass and make it like the show floor? Why don’t we make it possible for a developer to take a piece, a level of their game, release it into Game Pass, generate excitement for what’s coming, and also get that really valuable feedback as they are tuning and preparing their game for launch?”Bond also added that Microsoft set up the program to not just benefit the player, but it benefits the developers as well by giving them financial compensation for the game. It will also allow developers to receive feedback as well.Project Moorcroft is set to release within the next year and will begin by focusing on indie games.

Xbox consoles has changed secret achievements, and it’s quite a handy change for any hunters out there.Xbox users can now view secret achievements natively, as announced via an Xbox Wire post. On how to access the information, the post reads: “From within a game, open the guide and go to Game activity > Achievements.

Gears Of War franchise could be getting a remastered collection in the near future.That’s according to Xbox Era journalist Nick Baker, who said on the Xbox Era podcast on May 14 that a “Master Chief Collection-type treatment” is in the works for the Gears Of War series (via VGC).“A while back I said there is another Microsoft franchise that’s getting the Master Chief Collection-type treatment, I am of the belief that that is coming this year,” said Baker on the podcast, adding “everyone has guessed it.”Last year, The Coalition, the main studio behind the Gears Of War franchise, had reportedly started work on an original game series, targeted for the Xbox Series X|S using Unreal Engine 5.However, VGC reports that the studio is rather in the early stages of developing the next Gears Of War title.The collection could be revealed at the Xbox and Bethesda showcase due next month, where there may also be the first gameplay footage of Starfield, although it was delayed last week.The Coalition’s last game, Gears 5, was released on Xbox One and PC in 2019.The original Gears Of War was released back in 2006 for the Xbox 360 and received critical acclaim. It was then remastered as Gears Of War: Ultimate Edition for PC and Xbox One in 2015.However, the subsequent sequels: Gears Of War 2 and Gears Of War 3, never received the same treatment and are only available through modern Xbox consoles via backwards compatibility.

Certain Affinity has highlighted Xbox development experience in a job listing, after it was reported the studio is working on an exclusive for the console.The job requirement was spotted by Klobrille on Twitter (thanks, VGC), who shared the Certain Affinity job listing for a senior graphics engineer. Under the requirements, it’s stated that whoever fills the role must have “development experience on Xbox consoles,” as the studio also says it is “working on our own new original IP.”This follows a report from earlier in the year that claimed Certain Affinity was working on a Monster Hunter-inspired Xbox-exclusive title.

Sea of Thieves will see the addition of a new quest called Legend of the Veil, which brings in randomised story elements.First mentioned in Sea of Thieves’ roadmap from January, Legend of the Veil is a new three chapter long quest that will be available from April 21, and has now been detailed in both a blog post and a new video. The quest will be available for pirate legends, though in the deep dive where the quest is detailed, Rare staff did note that anyone can take part in the quest as long as a pirate legend is leading the voyage.In the new Sea of Thieves quest, players will be assisting the Pirate Lord, where you will have to gather special veil stones to further the plot.Legend of the Veil’s first two chapters are designed to be randomised, with some quests more puzzle oriented, and others featuring more combat.

Microsoft is apparently working on a group family pass for Xbox Game Pass, as the subscription service currently only offers individual memberships.As outlined in a Windows Central article from yesterday (March 31), trusted sources have said that a family plan – where one account can pay more to share Xbox Game Pass across a household’s accounts – is in the works and set to release sometime this year.The higher payment tier will apparently grant access to Xbox Game Pass for five different players, and be “far cheaper” than paying for each Xbox Game Pass account separately. Currently, Xbox Game Pass retails at £7.99 a month for console and PC, or £10.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which includes game streaming and extra perks.This means that at present a regular subscription would cost five players £39.95, or Ultimate subscribers £54.95 a month.

Xbox has announced that it has paid indie developers billions in royalties from its ID@Xbox program.Independent Developers @ Xbox (ID@Xbox) is a scheme that Microsoft started in 2014 that allows indie studios to self-publish their games on the Xbox ecosystem of platforms.The announcement of shared royalties comes from Chris Charla, who was director of ID@Xbox until 2018 and is now a partner of content creation and programs at the company.“Since the program’s inception, independent developers have earned more than $2.5 billion [£1.89 billion] in royalties, and total revenue generated by ID@Xbox partners on Xbox almost doubled over the last three years. These are staggering numbers, and it speaks to the power of independent developers,” wrote Charla in a post on Xbox Wire.Charla adds that because of the scheme, indie developers have been able to give Microsoft direct feedback regarding its back-end publishing, which has allowed developers to more easily ship their games on both console and PC.“We’ve also paid developers and publishers across Xbox hundreds of millions of dollars in Game Pass license fees,” adds Charla, although no specific figure was given here.Despite apparently having over 3,000 indie games on Xbox, Charla notes that one area the team needs to improve on is discoverability and making it easier for players to find games they may end up really enjoying.Earlier in the month an ID@Xbox showcase was also live-streamed and showed off plenty of games coming to Game Pass in the near future.

The Initiative, the studio working on a reboot of Perfect Dark, is facing significantly high turnover and issues with slow progress.As reported by VGC, as many as half of Perfect Dark‘s core development team have quit The Initiative over the last year.VGC reports that this includes “most” of The Initiative’s senior design team. Last week, it was discovered that Dan Neuburger – game director at The Initiative – was one of the senior members that left.Departures include two senior system designers, a lead level designer, two senior writers, a design director, and more.The report claims that from speaking to several senior developers, “a lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress” were attributed to this departure.

Shredders, the snowboarding game from studios I-Illusions and Let It Roll, is launching on PC and Xbox Series X|S on March 17.Yesterday (March 2), publisher FoamPunch announced the release date with a brand new Shredders trailer while reaffirming that it will also be releasing day one on Xbox Game Pass.The trailer shows off newly captured gameplay of snowboarders in action, riding snow trails and pulling off unique tricks – similar to that of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. You can check out the short trailer below:Shredders was announced back in June 2021 as “a love letter to snowboarding” and takes inspiration from snowboarding films, as well as the Amped games that were released on Xbox and Xbox 360.As the game synopsis reads, “You and your pal are making goofball snowboarding videos at the Frozen Wood resort when brand ambassador Lisa makes an offer for a couple of sponsored videos.

Playground Games has released a new Forza Horizon 5 update which adds sign language support.Previously announced last year, the sign language support feature has been in development for a while but has finally arrived today for all platforms.When players boot up Forza Horizon 5, they should be able to find both American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) features in the settings.The sign language update will support 150 in-game cinematics that are shown throughout the game, making the driving game much more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing players.The newly released YouTube video shows how the feature has been implemented, with actors from the deaf and hard of hearing community signing in the corner of the screen during the cinematics, story segments, and challenges.In a new blog post detailing the update, Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, discussed the new update and talked about her own deafness, saying that with the addition of signing in the game, she no longer needs to ask her family what she missed.“There are so many people with disabilities and people who are deaf. And, there are a lot of closed doors every day.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard regarding the recent acquisition occurred days after the report on CEO Bobby Kotick.An SEC filing was published on Friday (February 18) stating that Kotick and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer entered talks about the acquisition on November 19, just three days after a report alleged that Kotick had known about Activision Blizzard’s misconduct for years.In September of last year, it was announced that Activision Blizzard was cooperating with an SEC investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment at the company, which this filing refers to.Part of the SEC filing reads: “On November 19, 2021, in the course of a conversation on a different topic between Mr. Spencer and Mr.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has said that staff at Activision Blizzard will be “under scrutiny” following its acquisition of the publisher.Last month, Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in a deal worth around £50billion, with the US Federal Trade Commission currently conducting an antitrust investigation.The purchase comes after Activision was hit by a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and another by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission following multiple allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and workplace misconduct.In between that, its own staff also filed a complaint too, alleging that the company used intimidation and “coercive tactics” to stifle staff trying to improve working conditions.It’s also been alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of sexual misconduct claims within the company since 2018 but did not inform Activision’s board of directors. A report by the Wall Street Journal also suggested that Kotick played a first-hand part in the culture that has embroiled Activision in sexual harassment lawsuits and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission.Speaking CNBC (via VGC) about the accusations, Smith said: “We’re looking to the leadership team at Activision Blizzard today to make culture and workplace safety a top priority every single day, until the day when this deal hopefully closes.

Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard is causing concern for smaller game developersLast month it was announced that Microsoft was acquiring Activision Blizzard for around £50billion, followed by news at the end of January that Sony would buy Bungie for £2.6billion.Now multiple indie developers have spoken to the BBC about their concerns with the Microsoft acquisition, and what it could mean for them.Director at Kitfox Games Tanya Short – the developer of Boyfriend Dungeon – said: “This Activision acquisition strikes fear in us because it makes it so much more obvious – maybe they could dominate the rest of the year and then what do we do?”“Conceivably, indie games outside of these services might lose engagement as subscribers focus most of their attention on games they can access for free within the service,” adds Yura Zhdanovich, founder and director at Sad Cat Studios.The Federal Trade Commission is set to investigate the deal and whether or not it would harm the competition. FTC Chair Lina Khan is an advocate for a more assertive approach when handling deals.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that he doesn’t believe its acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission.The deal, worth around £50billion, was announced on January 18 but earlier this week it was announced that the US Federal Trade Commission would be conducting an antitrust investigation after fears the acquisition would harm competition.Talking to the Financial Times, Nadella said that the deal would only place Microsoft as the third largest player in the video games industry behind Sony and Tencent. He also believes the fragmentation of the market would prevent it from ever gaining a monopoly.“At the end of the day, all the analysis here has to be done through a lens of what’s the category we’re talking about, and what about the market structure?” said Nadella.“Even post-this acquisition, we will be number three with a low teens (market) share, where even the highest player is also in the teens (for market) share.

Microsoft is to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over their proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.News broke last month that Call of Duty and Overwatch developers Activision Blizzard were being acquired by Microsoft. But the deal isn’t actually set in stone yet, and now according to Bloomberg, the deal will see the FTC conduct an antitrust investigation over the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Halo Infinite has now become the biggest launch in franchise history according to Microsoft. It’s worth noting that there wasn’t a delineation between the campaign and multiplayer of the newest Halo title, meaning the figure likely comes from a combination of both. As Halo Infinite’s campaign is on Xbox Game Pass – which was confirmed to have passed 25million subscribers recently – and the multiplayer is free-to-play, it isn’t entirely surprising that the launch has been so successful.Over 20million players have suited up, according to a recent earnings call and a note from the official Halo Twitter.With over 20 million Spartans joining us so far, we’re thrilled to announce that #HaloInfinite is the biggest launch in Halo franchise history!Thank you, everyone, for joining us on the next step in this great journey.

Sony has made some of its first comments regarding Microsoft‘s £50billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying it expects the games to remain on PlayStation.As spotted by Bloomberg, a Sony spokesperson speaking to the Wall Street Journal today (January 20) has said that it expects Activision to honour its contractual agreements despite being bought out by its competitor Microsoft.“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.”Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming has said that Microsoft does not intend to pull communities away from PlayStation by taking games away from the platform. Analysts also suggest that due to the large number of players of Activision’s biggest franchise Call Of Duty, regulators would prevent Microsoft from making it an exclusive title over fears of monopolisation.However, Spencer made similar remarks during the acquisition of Zenimax.